IMPROVING FOOD AND HEALTH THROUGH CROSS-CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1010181
• Project Start Date: Oct 1, 2016
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2021
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
(N/A)
ST PAUL,MN 55108

Performing Department
Food Science & Nutrition

Non Technical Summary
There may be times when what is needed is not so much a new technical discovery as an alteration in our way of seeing and understanding a situation that already has our attention. European culture gave birth to modern science as a means to investigate and explain the natural world. The cultural foundations of biomedical disciplines that have since emerged, including nutrition, are seldom explored. This unexamined infrastructure of thought presupposes background assumptions and implicit cultural values that are often overlooked and escape peer review. These "hidden subjectivities" are widely taken-for- granted while exerting a powerful hold on the scope, direction and patterns of disciplinary thought. Nutrition science currently has no accepted means of collectively attending to hidden subjectivities embedded within its methods and practice. This project proposes to direct inquiry into these dimensions as a means to advance the discipline. It builds upon the practice of cross-cultural engagement (CCE). CCE deliberately seeks out and critically engages food and health understandings of non-European cultures. Its protocol includes cognitive frameshifting, a practice of temporarily stepping outside of habitual thought patterns and into a non-biomedical framework of background assumptions. A cultural lens metaphor derives from CCE practice and is forwarded here as a viable means for restoring critically reflective attention to hidden subjectivities while also inviting further CCE practice within the discipline. The project will convene scientific sessions at national conferences to discuss hidden subjectivities and the value of making implicit assumptions explicit as theories. Another objective is to develop a scholarship of teaching using cross-cultural engagement and transformational learning as applied to nutrition, health and agricultural science education. Transformational learning confronts not only what we know, but also how we know about food, nutrition and health, bringing food and health understandings of non-European cultures. A third objective is to explore the barriers between academic/Western/Euro-centric sciences and Native American sciences relating to issues of food, nutrition and health.

Animal Health Component

80%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

0%

Applied

80%

Developmental

20%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
703	6099	3000	100%

Knowledge Area
703 - Nutrition Education and Behavior;

Subject Of Investigation
6099 - People and communities, general/other;

Field Of Science
3000 - Anthropology;

Keywords

food

nutrition

health

cross-cultural engagement

hidden subjectivities

epistemology

culture

Goals / Objectives
Inquiry into Foundational "Hidden Subjectivities" of Nutrition Science Goal of Objective 1: Create within the nutrition science discipline an acceptable means for critical inquiry into its underlying infrastructure of thought.Nutrition and dietary sciences, like many branches of biomedical inquiry with positivist empirical roots, are often seen by its practitioners to stand apart from human subjectivity as tool to depict the world as it really exists. From this standpoint, science begins with reality itself, not human ideas about reality, so there is little need for critical inquiry into what is already self-evidently true. This stance pushes into the background any connection to background assumptions, mental models or cultural values (26-28). The epistemologist Lorraine Code coined the term "hidden subjectivity" in referring to the background assumptions and hypotheses implicit to and embedded within a well-established scientific discipline (25). The term hidden subjectivity points to the subjective and implicit nature of background assumptions and presuppositions. Materialism, reductionism and mechanistic thought for example, are not filtered out by objective, disinterested techniques but represent subjective orientations that permeate the mental models through which disciplinary inquiry proceeds (14,26). Due to their implicit and largely unexamined nature, they may hold significant governing power over disciplinary thought and parameters of acceptability.One manifestation of this stance is a lack of any accepted disciplinary practice through which to periodically direct critical inquiry into the hidden subjectivities presupposed by contemporary nutrition science methodologies (14). For example, nutrition and dietary sciences tend to adopt virtually exclusively various forms of what Lacey refers to as "materialist strategies" (28). Representing nutrition and dietary phenomena in this way decontextualizes and dissociates them from any place they may have in human lives and experience (28). It also constrains theories to encapsulate only those possibilities consistent with materialist strategies. Non-material hidden subjectivities tend to be under-examined in disciplinary contexts emphasizing materialist strategies (25,26). Currently, there is little capacity or inclination to direct inquiry toward the implications of near exclusive reliance upon materialist strategies. The goal of this objective area is to create an accepted means for such inquiry within the nutrition science discipline.This project will explore the idea that a significant barrier to improved nutritional and preventive health is that the cultural resources of indigenous communities have long been overlooked by Western science (12,13,35). This need for cultural understanding is poorly addressed at present because food and nutrition professionals are seldom taught to see the culture they bring with them into the intercultural interaction (14). The lack of cultural awareness can create "blind spots" with regard to the capacity for self-correction within disciplinary discourse (14). More commonly, professionals are taught to normalize professional practice as somehow disconnected from culture, as transcending culture, or as an ultimate reference point for understanding nutrition-related concerns regardless of cultural context.OBJECTIVE AREA 2Cross Cultural Engagement and Transformational LearningObjective Goal: Create an educational model for including culturally different systems of thought in nutrition education.Outcome objective: Scholarship of teaching articles that describes the theory and practice of cross-cultural engagement and transformational learning as applied to nutrition, health and agricultural science education. Professional education in nutrition/dietary sciences currently does little to equip its professionals to see culture within themselves, to look for, recognize and examine the cultural grounding of their professional training or to see the dimensions of culture embedded in accepted approaches to scientific inquiry (see the objective area above: "Inquiry into Foundational 'Hidden Subjectivities' of Nutrition Science"). Cross Cultural Engagement (CCE) recognizes forms of human knowledge (including western/biomedical sciences) as cultural constructions (14). Teaching students to develop cross-cultural engagement skills asks learners to develop their capacity to engage in cognitive frameshifting and behavioral code-shifting (24). These are not just skills in which students gain competence, they can more properly be understood as competence with regard to appropriate action within intercultural context (24). The learning can only happen within the experiential domain of an intercultural context, a distinctly different enterprise than learning about cultural difference from a fixed, dominant, positivist perspective (16). Cultivating CCE requires transformational learning theory (33). Transformational learning confronts not only what we know, but also how we know. Like CCE, transformational learning theory is new to nutrition science. This Objective area has a goal of creating an educational model for including culturally different systems of thought in nutrition education. This objective may not be recognized as research per se, but it is designed to be consistent with Ernest Boyer's concept of the scholarship of teaching (42).OBJECTIVE AREA 3Seeds of Native HealthOutcome Goal: Create an edited volume and/or document that will explore the barriers between academic/Western/Euro-centric sciences and Native American sciences as it specifically relates to issues of food, nutrition and public health.Throughout human history, every society has created its own knowledge and understandings of food, nutrition and health as a matter of survival. The past 500 years has witnessed severe disruption of indigenous understandings of food, nutrition and health within the Americas, owing to persistent forces of colonization and imperialism (12,13,35). Ironically, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have made many substantive contributions, developing sophisticated systems of agriculture that have given us beans, corn, potatoes, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes and over twenty other foods (12,37,38). For many years these achievements have been appropriated unjustly, without acknowledgment of the indigenous knowledges giving rise to them, or fair compensation for unwritten knowledge and understandings (11,12). Is it possible that our ideas of progress and scientific advancement focus our attention in ways that may overlook what other cultures might have to contribute? Currently, indigenous understandings of how to live a good and healthful life are being reclaimed and revitalized by American Indian communities; communities that are committed to reasserting their culture and sovereignty as a means of restoring the health and vitality their people once enjoyed (36).As indicated above, this need for cultural understanding is poorly addressed at present because food and nutrition professionals are seldom taught to see the culture they bring with them into the intercultural interaction (14). More commonly, professionals are taught to normalize professional practice as somehow disconnected from culture, as transcending culture, or as an ultimate reference point for understanding nutrition-related concerns regardless of cultural context. This objective area will create a document that will explore the barriers between academic/Western/Euro-centric science and Native American practices/wisdom/traditions as it specifically relates to issues of food, nutrition and public health.

Project Methods
OBJECTIVE AREA 1Inquiry into Foundational "Hidden Subjectivities" of Nutrition Science Create New Paths toward Intercultural Exchange: Working across Cultural Difference conference sessions will be proposed at major national meetings such as Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Experimental Biology, American Public Health Association and/or the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. This scholarly discourse will be initiated by presenting these ideas to the nutrition science professionals through selected contents previous and emerging findings from the Seeds of Native Health objective area.Sessions will be planned and proposed to annual society meetings of professional researchers. The proposed sessions will be designed to offer cross-cultural perspectives which make hidden subjectivities more explicit and available for critical discourse within the community of nutrition science scholars. Proceedings will be captured, documented and published, further catalyzing discourse within the discipline. The long-term goal is a cadre of nutrition science professionals involved in cultural lens and cross-cultural engagement work that will inform the larger discipline.OBJECTIVE AREA 2Cross Cultural Engagement and Transformational LearningA basic protocol for the critically reflective practice of CCE comes from almost 20 years of experience (Hassel 2014) and is outlined here as follows:Develop ongoing and personal relationships with individuals who work within older, non-biomedical knowledge traditions.Maintain an open-minded disposition by suspending any impulse toward preliminary judgments regarding validity or tenability of foreign conceptsTry to empathetically inhabit the different worldview orientation and to begin to think within that system of thought, to the extent possible. This is the work of cognitive frame-shifting (Bennet, 1993) and can offer a different vantage point from which to reconsider familiar issues.Use the new cognitive vantage point to also reflect back upon your own habitual thought patterns and mental models. Try to recognize the culturally constructed nature of your thinking (linear, dualistic, etc). Begin to recognize and critically reflect upon your cognitive attachments to your habitual thought patterns and mental models.Develop a capacity to temporarily loosen your attachment to thought patterns and mental models.Continue to episodically dwell for periods of time within the context of non-biomedical background assumptions and mental models, further developing your cognitive frame-shifting capacity.Critically reflect on your experience with each of these steps.The scholarship of teaching article will assist other faculty in employing transformational learning and cross cultural engagement in experiential, multicultural learning contexts.OBJECTIVE AREA 3Seeds of Native HealthThis study involves multiple contributors bringing different perspectives that describe and highlight barriers through practice-based examples and case studies.It will include interviews with respected Elders, and contributions by academically trained Native Americans scholars who routinely use and navigate both indigenous and western science knowledge systems. Numerous indigenous scholars from the late Vine Deloria, Jr. to Linda Tuhiwai Smith have commented at length on culturally-based knowledge systems, oppressive research practices and power imbalances confronting indigenous peoples in seeking more respectful and proper cultural exchange with non-Native scholars.It will include the metaphor of bridging differing systems of thought. Indigenous scholars will offer thoughts/models/contributions on the bridging process, its characteristics, essential features etc. The study will include chapter(s)/works in each of the following sections:I. Importance of culture, cultural difference in systems of thought and worldview - science as culture; the need for "a cultural lens".II. The voices of respected Anishinaabe and Dakota Elders as provided through extensive interviews.III. Contributions by academically trained Indigenous scholars and leaders who routinely use and navigate both indigenous and western science knowledge systems. The works of indigenous scholars will be summarized as relevant to the work of improving Native nutrition. Contemporary indigenous scholars will offer their own first-hand accounts of obstacles to protecting/nurturing cultural identity within the Western Academy and offer their models for more respectful and symmetric intercultural sharing and exchange.IV. Dynamics of colonization, assimilation, cultural imposition and oppression with respect to academic research and education with examples/case studies relevant to nutrition.V. Summary of barriers and obstacles.VI. Introduction to concepts of food sovereignty and dietary decolonization; Indigenous approaches to better nutrition and health outcomes.VII. Emerging bridging models/practices from the field on overcoming obstacles/barriers: promising practices, essential qualities, characteristics and affective intellectual traits needed for harmonious and balanced Intercultural interfacing, interaction, intersection and integration; promising practices.

Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Cross-cultural engagement (CCE) is a distinct type of community-based, participatory action research. In CCE I work alongside citizens who bring knowledge that does not correspond to scientific models. CCE explores the process of interfacing or bridging culturally different systems of thought. This work is quite different from more conventional forms of research where academic experts design and implement interventions or programs grounded solely in professional mental models, methodologies and approaches. Ongoing CCE work includes partnership with Indigenous communities, including Tribal Nations in the Upper Midwest and African American residents in the Twin Cities Metro area. These communities suffer most from diet-related health inequities, often the result of institutional structures, policies, norms, values and practices that are espoused and assumed as universal when, upon closer examination, they reflect a highly Eurocentric or EuroAmerican "Western" culture. When Uuniversities and other institutions impose a system of problem solving that does not align with a culture's indigenous knowledge system, it can undermine and usurp that cultural knowledge system, causing harm to communities and individuals. These consequences are not well recognized or understood among most scientific professionals who have not extensively engaged in contexts where such injustices are experienced. Over two-plus decades, this project has surfaced much learning of how Land-Grant universities can better engage in research and scholarship with citizens and communities whose knowledge has been marginalized, discounted and where people are "underserved". Some of these findings have been published as the "craft" of cross-cultural engagement, a viable alternative to the more common "expert model" of intervention through research. The scholarship of cross-­cultural engagement brings significant focus to: 1) Developing long-term relationships with communities challenged by health and food system inequities; and 2) Bringing careful examination and critical inquiry to underlying assumptions and presuppositions of the scientific enterprise that are commonly taken for granted in nutrition science research. Because these worldview orientations, mental models and value outlooks are highly shared, they are often presumed as universal and so escape critical attention and inquiry. CCE offers a way for scientists to better identify what they take for granted through relationship with people outside professional circles who do not share embedded worldview and value outlooks. The primary "target" audience of CCE is NOT non-academic residents or community members; rather it is the academic experts and research communities who too often do not study the root causes of health disparities and education inequities. My work explores how the dynamics of racialization has permeated the scientific enterprise (more specifically, the food and nutrition sciences/professions) at a subliminal and paradigmatic level. Most scientific disciplines do not create avenues of inquiry or discourse that question their governing paradigms or examine "hidden subjectivities" - taken-for-granted presuppositions, value outlooks/ priorities or mental models. Despite commitments to objectivity, scientists, like everyone else, are attached to their beliefs. Because CCE engages stakeholders who do not share some or many of these presupposed ideas, it represents a way for scientists to better identify what they take for granted. Once identified, critical discourse can help scientists to better understand how conventional food and nutrition science is limited or constrained by what they often taken for granted. The scholarship of CCE represents a means to interface, navigate and negotiate with different forms of knowledge that presuppose different ideas about how the world works. CCE also broadens classroom education as an application of transformative learning theory. Culturally different forms of knowledge represent different conceptual lenses through which to study food and health, exposing students to the diversity of worldviews they will likely encounter in a globalized society. CCE cultivates the capacity of participants to shift their frame of reference to accommodate different ways of perceiving and understanding the world beyond biomedical/academic perspectives. Much work in this project has focused on CCE as a means to link diversity issues within Land-Grant research universities to academic innovation and improved quality of teaching, research and community engagement. Changes/Problems:The formidable cultural authority of science to define nature and determine what constitutes reliable knowledge of the world can condition and reify a positivist belief that legitimate knowledge can only arise through methods accepted as valid within scientific societies. While such a stance can be seen as an expedient defense against type I error (accepting as true what is actually false), it leaves the door wide open for type II error (rejecting as false what actually holds truth). Left unexamined, such a mindset can leave errors within hidden sibjectivities unchecked, constrain possibilities for innovation and contribute to unjust dismantling of cultural knowledge systems that lie beyond boundaries of what many professionals consider scientific. Exploring the complexities and nuances of these ideas more thoroughly is both a developmental process that takes time and an evolution of collective consciousness that is now emerging. This work can be seen as a collective responsibility of 21st century Land grant universities deserving more attention within food and nutrition disciplines. This is a final report, although cross-cultural engagement work will continue with a workshop approach offered to academic societies in food and nutrition. A recent promising development are diversity and inclusion initiatives in the Institute of Food Technologist (IFT) society. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?"A Case for Cross Cultural Engagement" at the University of Minnesota Department of Food Science and Nutrition 40th Anniversary Celebration in 2012. "Cultural Difference: A Resource for Better Science?" at the University of Minnesota Department of Food Science and Nutrition 40th Anniversary Celebration in 2012. "Barriers to Participation: Examining Nutrition Science Through Cross-Cultural Engagement" First Annual Conference on Native American Nutrition, October, 2016. "Engaging Native Nutrition: Identifying Barriers" Second Annual Conference on Native American Nutrition, September 2017. "Decolonizing Nutrition Science" Second Annual Conference on Native American Nutrition, September, 2017. "Landscapes of Conflict" Fifth and Sixth Biannual Nibi and Manoomin Symposium, White Earth Reservation Conference Center, 2017 and 2019. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In addition to the presentations at Conferences on Native American Nutrition and events described above, the articles below were published in Journal of Critical Dietetics: Hassel, C. (2016) Cultural Diversity and Critical Dietetics: A Practice of Cross-Cultural Engagement. J Crit Dietetics 3 (2): 1-9. Hassel, C. (2019) Whiteness Is..... J. Crit. Dietetics 4(2):69-72. Azzahir, A., Jansma, M., Perteet-Jackson, A. Barnes, R., Marquart, L. and Hassel, C. (2021) Moving from Race to Culture: Transforming Dietetics. J. Crit. Dietetics 6 (1):12-21. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? One of the major accomplishments stemming from this project was the development of several Native Nutrition Conferences conducted between 2016 and 2019. These conferences were funded by the "Seeds of Native Health" campaign and implemented through the University of Minnesota "Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives" initiative. These Conferences brought together academic professionals, Native communities challenged with health inequities and indigenous scholars and elders. Over a period of four years, the conferences evolved from a more academic conference format to a format more aligned with indigenous values and food sovereignty work where nature is respected as having personhood, agency and rights in accordance with human rights. Over a period of four years, ober 1500 people attended the conferences, including over 200 academic professionals. Another accomplishment was a study of obstacles between western academic research and Native American knowledge systems.Our analysis suggests that some barriers (including those associated with historical trauma and internalized oppression) can only be effectively addressed through Indigenous cultural knowledge and resources. Many others, such as disrespectful treatment of Indigenous Peoples, invisibility/devaluing of Indigenous knowledge, inappropriate curriculum and disciplinary blind spots can be addressed by non-Native nutrition/health/agriculture professionals by developing their own cultural awareness and intercultural capacity. This was reported in an article entitled "Decolonizing Nutrition Science", published in 2019 in Current Developments in Nutrition. Holding scientific sessions on cross cultural engagement at major national food and nutrition science society meetings) has proven to be quite challenging. Our analysis holds that many of the barriers identified here (disrespectful treatment, cultural hegemony, degradation of nature, colonization, invisibility/devaluing of Indigenous knowledge, monocultural tendency within academic knowledge/professions, inappropriate curriculum and disciplinary blind spots) are "baked in" to non-Native professional/academic culture and that much developmental work remains before their is more readiness to understand these cultural and intercultural dynamics. It would seem that there exists a threshold of "readiness", as yet unattained, that must emerge for further progress on wider discourse through workshops in these academic societies. The Conferences on Native American Nutrition show evidence of catalyzing an inclination toward building cultural awareness and intercultural capacity that will eventually lead to realization of this goal. In addition a "Landscapes of Conflict" gallery was comissioned and developed to offer an artistic exploration of the history of food and health in North America, as told from an indigenous artist perspective. Landscapes of Conflict is a photographic montage gallery depicting pre-contact, colonization, present and future viewpoints around food, land and health. Its purpose is to evoke visceral awareness and connection that are often bracketed out of more technical, material and reductive forms of scientific inquiry. Both brutal and beautiful, the gallery challenges viewers to awaken their full humanity (not only intellect of the head) and learn what this difficult history of genocidal violence might teach us as we move toward the possibilities of a more promising and equitable future. The gallery invites us to reflect upon the legacy of colonization still echoing through our educational, food and health institutions. It asks for our best selves in the work of inviting in wisdom, reconnecting the wisdom within ourselves as a move toward transforming to a more healthful reality.

Publications

• Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Pine, Y.J.P. A CULTURE-CENTERED APPROACH TO NUTRITION EDUCATION FOR URBAN AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE TWIN CITIES.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Hassel, C. Tamang, A., Foushee, L. and BadHeart Bull, R. Decolonizing Nutrition Science. Current Developments in Nutrition 3, Suppl 2: 311. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzy095.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Hassel, C. (2019) Whiteness Is&.. J. Critical Dietetics 4(2):69-72.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Azzahir, A., Jansma, M., Perteet-Jackson, A. Barnes, R., Marquart, L. and Hassel, C. Moving from Race to Culture: Transforming Dietetics. J. Crit. Dietetics 6 (1):12-21.
• Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Mutiga, M. Osseo Health and Wellness Project: A Community-Driven Model to Address Inequities in Students Nutrition, Health and Wellness in a Culturally Diverse School District.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2016 Citation: Hassel, C. (2016) Cultural Diversity and Critical Dietetics: A Practice of Cross-Cultural Engagement J Critical Dietetics 3 (2): 23-31.

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences include Twin Cities metro community residents and academic professionals. Changes/Problems:The Ancient Whole Grains Initiative came about in 2020 that focuses on shifting attention to culture and culinary heritage through rediscovery of ancient whole grains of Africa. We are working with Dr. Len Marquart and two PhD students in nutrition to document how experiential learning in a cross-cultural context fills gaps in the curricula while creating a model of community-driven engagement. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?I am currently developing a multi-level, tiered approach to infusing a transformational learning dimension into the food science, nutrition science and dietetics curricula. This tiered approach will begin at a 2512 Food Customs and Culture course, be reinforced through development of a 4000 Level course emphasizing cross-cultural engagement in food and health, through experiential learning opportunities in cultural communities working with African American Chefs and food entraprenuers at the Midtown Global Market, and finally graduate level exploration of the cultural dimensions of food, nutrition and dietetics sciences at the levels of epistemology and ontology. This tiered approach encompasses all three objective areas. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In February, I was a keynote speaker at the Cultural Wellness Center annual Cultural Conclave "Moving from Race to Culture: Examining the Racialization of Whiteness as Cultural Amnesia". Almost 200 community residents and academic professionals were in adttendance. I presented a spoken word piece Whiteness Is....., followed by 90 minutes of conversation, question and answer. I led a session at our Departmental Food Science and Nutrition Showcase Event. In addition, I have given several presentations as guest lecturer within our curriculim, including one-on-one debriefing for graduate students taking the Intercultural Development Inventory. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I hope to publish a more comprehensive document I have been working on currently titled "Recovering Wisdom Through Culture". In addition, I hope to complete Murugi Mutiga, a PhD student working with me who has developed a model of Community-Driven Engagement working with African Immigrant Services and Osseo Schools Health and Wellness Program.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? I have worked this past year to bring a dimension of transformational learning into FScN 3615, an undergraduate course exploring sociocultural aspects of food, nutrition and health. This work represents progress in Objective area 1 (create within the nutrition science discipline an acceptable means for critical inquiry into its underlying infrastructure of thought) in which I introduced foundational cultural dimensions underlying nutrition science and dietetics, as well as progress in Objective area 2 (create an educational model for including culturally different systems of thought in nutrition education). The transformational dimension intends to move students through developmental stages of intercultural capacity as explicated by Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. In addition, my work with colleague Len Marquart gave rise to an intercultural experiential learning component for a cohort of 12 dietetics undergraduates, in addition to a summer internship for 5 dietetics students. This experiential component represents community-driven engagement at the Midtown Global Market in South Minneapolis under the direction of the Cultural Wellness Center, a result of my long-term partnership with CWC, serving primarily the African American community in the Twin Cities Metro area. Finally, this work gave rise to an Ancient Whole Grains of Africa initiative (AWG) that was funded by the HFHL Initiative in 2020. Reclaiming ancient whole grains creates an opportunity for cultural restoration, pride, and connection to African roots for African American communities. U of M students will research local and conventional AWG food system supply chain to identify barriers, quality and efficiency in accessing whole grains. African American chefs will work with whole grains to develop cultural foods, dishes and recipes for the community to taste and use in everyday life. A community-based culinary heritage assessment tool will be developed through this community-driven engagement work.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Hassel, C. (2019) Whiteness Is⿦.. J. Crit. Dietetics 4(2):69-72

Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this reporting period includes practicing food and nutrition professionals, including registered dietitians, teaching, research and Extension professionals. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?I presented at a CRISPRCon gathering of over 150 scientists/researchers in Madison Wisconsin in which I spoke to the significant need for cultivating wisdom through culture as our gene editing tools and technologies continue to grow and allow for ever-wider opportunities for application. I continue to teach courses on Cultural Awareness, Knowledge and Health, Ways of Thinking about Health, Ways of Knowing and Science. Some 35 students were taught in 2019. I also taught critical thinking and culture to 20 food and nutrition graduate students this part year. In addition, this project has developed a Gallery "Landscapes of Conflict" that held two showings in 2019 for about 150 conference attendees and public health students. The gallery a photographic montage depicting pre-contact, colonization, present and future viewpoints. Both brutal and beautiful, the Gallery is designed to awaken within viewers a fuller understanding of our history, to expand consciousness of how this difficult history still affects food and nutrition professions through subliminal and unexamined hidden subjectivities. and what this history might teach us as we move toward the possibilities of a more promising future. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?See above text. In addition, I presented at the 6th Bi-Annual Nibi & Manoomin Symposium, held on the White Earth Reservation in October 2019 for 150 conference attendees. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I plan to publish the volume "Cultivating Wisdom through Culture". I will teach a course Sociocultural Aspects of Food, Nutrition and Health, in which I will attempt to bring some of the self-development work described in the volume into the food and nutrition curriculum within our undergraduate programs of study. We plan additional showings of the "Landscapes of Conflict" Gallery.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Goal of Objective 1: Create within the nutrition science discipline an acceptable means for critical inquiry into its underlying infrastructure of thought. The article Decolonizing Nutrition Science was published that can assist food and nutrition professionals in recognizing the EuroAmerican worldviews and value outlooks foundational to our profession and preparation of future professionals. When these intangible and often subconscious, subliminal and non-material hidden subjectivities are surfaced and made more explicit, these dimensions of culture can be examined, given over to critical inquiry and our established processes for peer review and self correction. We report evidence that because these foundational dimensions have too long remained implicit and therefore unavailable for critical inquiry, they remain as significant barriers to entry or completion for potential indigenous scholars who might otherwise choose to become food and nutrition professionals who would serve their indigenous communities. Objective Goal 2: Create an educational model for including culturally different systems of thought in nutrition education. The publication Whiteness IS..... is my attempt to share my personal experience in trying to overcome the dynamics of whiteness as an institution that has infiltrated and permeated our professional societies and institutions of higher education, including its cultural narratives of the savior narrative, cultural superiority, meritocracy and the story of separation and neutrality. This is a spoken word piece, which I have published as a readable poem, portrays the incidious nature of how the hidden subjectivities of whiteness have infiltrated and permeated our scientific and professional systems of thought. This piece is perhaps too difficult for many senior food and nutrition professionals conditioned to believe that faithful execution of scientific methods alone are enough to ensure our commitments to objectivity. I am therefore very judicious in where, for whom and how I share this work. Outcome Goal 3: Create an edited volume and/or document that will explore the barriers between academic/Western/Euro-centric sciences and Native American sciences as it specifically relates to issues of food, nutrition and public health. The Educational aid Cultivating Wisdom through Culture was developed to facilitate developing a cultural lens and cross-cultural engagement strategies for food and nutrition curricula. The volume includes a land acknowledgement relevant to Minnesota and the Twin Cities metro area, and includes development of a self-reflective take on critical thinking, understanding culture, developing a cultural lens, cultural interfacing, cross-cultural engagement methodology and concludes with a chapter on culture and science. This volume is nearing completion and will be submitted for publication.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Hassel, C. Tamang, A., Foushee, L. and BadHeart Bull, R. (2019) Decolonizing Nutrition Science. Current Developments in Nutrition 3, Suppl 2: 311. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdn/nzy095. Hassel, C. (2019) Whiteness Is&.. J. Critical Dietetics 4(2):69-72.

Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:Cross-cultural engagement (CCE) is a craft that invests significant time and effort in building partnerships and long-term relationships with people holding well-established food and health understandings that originate beyond the scope and a priori of academic disciplines and biomedical sciences. Its practice creates 'intellectual space' in which relationships and trust are built as a basis for further interaction or "interfacing" across culturally different systems of thought. In this regard, the term "target audience" is inappropriate in that it objectifies cultural communities working to improve their health through food. The partners of this project include Tribal and urban indigenous communities, the African American urban community, including African immigrant communities. These communities that experience significant cultural inequities also hold traditional cultural values, worldviews and means for producing knowledge that differ epistemologically from professional/academic disciplines. Respectfully bridging these cultural differences is no trivial matter. As professionals, our training prepares us to walk and work within our disciplinary world. We are seldom prepared to walk and work effectively within Indigenous worlds. With this in mind, the primary "target audience" for transformation is the academic and professional food and nutrition disciplines Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?A Department Seminar. An Extension Family Development Extension Educator presentation. A Native Educators Workshop presentation. Also this project added to two classes CFANS 1902 "Other Ways of Knowing Science" and CSPH 5111 "Ways of Thinking About Health". How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The maunscript "Decolonizing Nutrition Science" and the monograph "Reconnecting the Wisdom Within" will be published in 2019.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? An extensive educational monograph was produced entitled "Reconnecting the Wisdom Within", a 140 page document that outlines a process for food and nutrition professionals in navigating significant cultural differences at the level of epistemology and worldview orientation. In it, I outline some of my own experience in this regard. Also, working with a collaboration of Indigenous authors, we drafted a manuscript publication "Decolonizing Nutrition Science" to be published in the journal Current Developments in Nutrition. This manuscript explores how colonization is not only woven into the tapestry of North American history and supports assertions of Indigenous scholars that its deeply embedded patterns still echo through our food, education and health professions and systems. We identify some barriers and colonizing patterns, two interrelated lines of decolonizing work and present a cross-cultural engagement protocol for pursuing decolonizing work. Exploring the complexities and nuances of these ideas more thoroughly is both a developmental process and a collective responsibility that we see as deserving more attention within food and nutrition disciplines.

Publications

Progress 10/01/16 to 09/30/17

Outputs
Target Audience:Target audience includes food and nutrition professionals, including dietetics professionals, food systems, food and nutrition sciences and food service professionals. Extension professionals are also included in areas relevant to food and health issues. Changes/Problems:We are finding confirmation/validation of some barriers coming from an extensive literature review process, beginning in January 2017. An initial OVID Medline search strategy combining terms for indigenous people, spirituality, and nutrition yielded 1291 results, with a subsequent revision in strategy yielding 1010 results. As our team reviewed many of the papers so identified within the OVID Medline database, we found almost without exception that studies approach and examine aspects of Traditional or Indigenous Knowledge from within a Western disciplinary perspective, using the analytic frame and lens appropriate for the particular discipline. While we acknowledge that this represents an understandable and highly conditioned tendency among scholars, it is our view that this impulse also tends to perpetuate many of the common barriers/obstacles identified in the present study. If universities, institutions or other agencies impose a system of problem solving that does not align with the culture's indigenous knowledge system, it can undermine a cultural knowledge system and ultimately cause harm to a community and to individuals. This can be viewed as an extension of colonialism. Unfortunately, these consequences are often not visible or apparent to academic professionals. We see this lack of awareness as representing a significant obstacle/barrier to improving Native nutrition. By contrast, it is our belief (supported and echoed within the Feeding Ourselves, Fertile Ground II, First and Second Annual Conference on Native American Nutrition, and Nibi Manoomin Symposium reports) that in order to avoid perpetuating this and other misunderstandings/ barriers/obstacles that frequently occur when working across culturally divergent worldview orientations, Indigenous Knowledges can and should be represented, examined, interpreted and understood within its own system of thought, to the extent possible.This statement implies that the academic scholar will have developed sufficient cultural awareness and sensitivity to be able to recognize that their own academic paradigm represents a Eurocentric construction and brings (often implicitly) Eurocentric value outlooks that significantly bias perception and distort interpretation within the study.It is clear from this review process that such intercultural awareness and sensitivity is generally lacking among academic professionals. The implication is that if many of the intercultural barriers and obstacles to improving Native Nutrition are to be reduced, there is a need for greater intercultural awareness, sensitivity and capacity among non-Native professionals and academic scholars. The following represents those barriers/obstacles we see from the larger listing below as those most relevant to academic professionals: Disrespectful treatment - History of Obliteration Openness to spirituality Cultural Hegemony/dominance by U.S. Government and academic professionals Colonization/cultural disrespect Ignorance/invisibility of Native culture and indigenous knowledge among professionals Structural Racism Monocultural tendency of academic knowledge Tendency to devalue Native scientific methods "Hidden subjectivities" of Eurocentric sciences Inappropriate curriculum Disciplinary "blind spots" In an additional literature review process searching the University of Minnesota Library Database and Google Search Engine including Google Scholar, We have collected 187 articles/documents relevant to the key terms: food, nutrition, health, spirituality and indigenous peoples (see Appendix 2 for complete bibliography). What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Our study also continues with a "bridging" metaphor to depict a process of creating new paths toward building cross-cultural respect and understanding. Creating new paths means we need to first acknowledge that the older, more deeply ingrained patterns of cultural collision, colonization and assimilation are recognized as still echoing through our institutions so that they are not continually and subconsciously reproduced. "Landscapes of Conflict" speaks directly (and viscerally) to the need for creating historical and cultural awareness among non-Native professionals lacking this contextual understanding. We see this exhibit as needed to help disrupt implicit and subconscious patterns of thought and behavior that still contribute to perpetuating many of the barriers and obstacles we have identified. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A presentation was given at the Second Annual Native Nutrition Conference held in Prior Lake MN in September entitled "Decolonizing Nutrition Science" in a plenary session with 350 conference attendees. A Manuscript is being prepared for Current Developments in Nutrition. Another presentation entitled "Decolonizing Nutrition Science" was given at Program in Health Disparities Research (PHDR) at University of Minnesota Medical School, October, 2017. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The lessons in this work have served to shift our attention toward creating institutional change that recognizes a responsibility for non-Native professionals to build cultural awareness that calls into question unhealthy patterns of thought and action associated with cultural hegemony and disrespect for indigenous knowledge systems. The focus of Deliverable 1 is both about identifying the barriers and obstacles that are unhealthy as well as creating new paths of interfacing and interaction that are healthier. We have only small success with Deliverable 2 thus far: Presenting at the Second Annual Conference on Native American Nutrition, We are now drafting a pre-conference session proposal for The Society of Nutrition Education and Behavior for 2018.The other publications are in progress or in press.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective Area 1. A presentation was given at the Second Annual Native Nutrition Conference held in Prior Lake MN in September entitled "Decolonizing Nutrition Science" in a plenary session with 350 conference attendees. A Manuscript is being prepared for Current Developments in Nutrition. Objective Area 2. A publication was drafted "A Mindful Take on Critical Thinking" that lays the groundwork for critical self-reflection on culture. A second publication is in progress "Why Cylture" that discusses implicit dimensions of culture and cross-cultural engagement. Objective Area 3. Our analysis to date suggests that some barriers (including those associated with historical trauma and internalized oppression) can only be effectively addressed through indigenous cultural knowledge and resources. Many others, such as disrespectful treatment of indigenous peoples, invisibility/devaluing of indigenous knowledge, inappropriate curriculum and disciplinary blind spots can be addressed by non-Native nutrition/health/ agriculture professionals by developing their own cultural awareness and intercultural capacity. Our study also continues with a "bridging" metaphor to depict a process of creating new paths toward building cross-cultural respect and understanding. Creating new paths means we need to first acknowledge that the older, more deeply ingrained patterns of cultural collision, colonization and assimilation are recognized as still echoing through our institutions so that they are not continually and subconsciously reproduced. The development of a "Landscapes of Conflict" dimension to this study speaks directly (and viscerally) to the need for creating historical and cultural awareness among non-Native professionals lacking this contextual understanding. We see this exhibit as needed to help disrupt implicit and subconscious patterns of thought and behavior that still contribute to perpetuating many of the barriers and obstacles we have identified.

Publications

• Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Pine, Y.J.P. A CULTURE-CENTERED APPROACH TO NUTRITION EDUCATION FOR URBAN AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE TWIN CITIES.